Two Canadians are among those killed by a deadly terrorist attack at a major shopping mall in Kenya on Saturday that left at least 39 dead and more than 150 wounded.

The Prime Minister’s Office identified one of the deceased as 29-year-old diplomat Annemarie Desloges, who worked with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and served at Canada’s High Commission in Kenya as a liaison officer with the Canada Border Services Agency.

“Canada condemns in the strongest possible terms this cowardly, hateful act that apparently targeted innocent civilians who were simply out shopping,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a written statement released Saturday evening.

“Terrorist attacks like this seek to undermine the very values and way of life that Canadians cherish, and they reinforce the need for us to continue taking strong actions to protect the safety of Canadians no matter where they are in the world.”

The statement did not identify the other Canadian and it was not known whether or not the other Canadian was with Desloges at the time of the attack.

Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta disclosed on national TV that his close family members were among the dead.

A separate joint statement from Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander and Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney paid tribute to Desloges and to Canadian diplomats and the risks they run.

The hearts & prayers of all Cdns go out to all those affected by the senseless shooting in Kenya. My full statement: http://t.co/5fdLPAHuz7

“Like Annemarie, they do so because they believe in the cause of humanity. They believe that their work will better the lives of many at home and around the world. They believe in the values that Canada represents. We have no doubt that Annemarie touched the lives of many, and it is for that, that she will always be remembered.”

Witnesses said at least five gunmen — including at least one woman — first attacked an outdoor cafe at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, a shiny, new shopping centre that includes Nike, Adidas and Bose stores. The mall’s ownership is Israeli, and security experts have long said the structure made an attractive terrorist target.

France’s president said that two French women were also killed in the attack.

Four American citizens were reported injured in the attack. The wife of a foreign service national working for the U.S. Agency for International Development was killed, U.S. officials said.

No details about the injured Americans were released by the State Department, which cited privacy concerns. Consular officers were in contact with the injured and were providing appropriate assistance, a State Department official said.

Secretary of State John Kerry called the attack “a heartbreaking reminder that there exists unspeakable evil in our world which can destroy life in a senseless instant.”

“Attacks like this can’t change who we are, a people committed to peace and justice for all, but rather must reaffirm our determination to counter extremism and promote tolerance everywhere,” Kerr said in a statement. “As we prepare to bring the world’s leaders together at the United Nations next week, we are reminded again in tragedy of our common humanity.”

Noting the death of the wife of the USAID worker, Kerry commended agency workers for their efforts around the world and said the U.S. pledged “our commitment to do whatever we can to assist in bringing the perpetrators of this abhorrent violence to justice, and to continue our efforts to improve the lives of people across the globe.”

In a statement from the White House, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council said the U.S. would help bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice.

“We will continue to stand with the Kenyan people in their efforts to confront terrorism in all its forms, including the threat posed by al-Shabaab,” NSC spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said. “This cowardly act against innocent civilians will not shake our resolve.”

As the attack began shortly after noon Saturday, the al-Qaeda-linked gunmen asked the victims they had cornered if they were Muslim. Those who answered yes were free to go, several witnesses said. The non-Muslims were not.

Somalia’s Islamic extremist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility and says the attack was retribution for Kenyan forces’ 2011 push into Somalia.

Al-Shabab said on its Twitter feed that Kenyan security officials were trying to open negotiations. “There will be no negotiations whatsoever,” al-Shabab tweeted.

As night fell in Kenya’s capital, two contingents of army special forces troops moved inside the mall.

Police and military surrounded the huge shopping complex as helicopters buzzed overhead. An Associated Press reporter said he saw a wounded Kenyan soldier put into an ambulance at nightfall, an indication, perhaps, of a continuing shoot-out inside.

Shoppers — expatriates and rich Kenyans — fled in any direction that might be safe: into back corners of stores, back service hallways and bank vaults. Over the next several hours, pockets of people poured out of the mall as undercover police moved in. Some of the wounded were moved out in shopping carts.

“We started by hearing gunshots downstairs and outside. Later we heard them come inside. We took cover. Then we saw two gunmen wearing black turbans. I saw them shoot,” said Patrick Kuria, an employee at Artcaffe, the restaurant with shady outdoor seating.

Frank Mugungu, an off-duty army sergeant major, said he saw four male attackers and one female attacker. “One was Somali,” he said, but the others were black, suggesting that they could have been Kenyan or another nationality.

Al-Shabab, on its Twitter feed, said that it has many times warned Kenya’s government that failure to remove its forces from Somalia “would have severe consequences.” The group claimed that its gunmen had killed 100 people, but its assertions are often exaggerated.

“The attack at #WestgateMall is just a very tiny fraction of what Muslims in Somalia experience at the hands of Kenyan invaders,” al-Shabab said. Another tweet said: “For long we have waged war against the Kenyans in our land, now it’s time to shift the battleground and take the war to their land #Westgate.”

Al-Shabab threatened in late 2011 to unleash a large-scale attack in Nairobi. Kenya has seen a regular spate of grenade attacks since then but never such a large terrorist assault.

Nairobi’s mortuary superintendent, Sammy Nyongesa Jacob, said Africans, Asians and Caucasians were among the bodies brought to the mortuary.

The U.S. embassy said it was in contact with local authorities and offered assistance. Some British security personnel assisted in the response.

The gunmen told hostages that non-Muslims would be targeted, said Elijah Kamau, who was at the mall at the time of the midday attack.

“The gunmen told Muslims to stand up and leave. They were safe, and non-Muslims would be targeted,” he said.

Jay Patel, who sought cover on an upper floor in the mall when shooting began, said that when he looked out of a window onto the upper parking deck of the mall he saw the gunmen with a group of people. Patel said that as the attackers were talking, some of the people stood up and left and the others were shot.

The attack was carried out by terrorists, said police chief Benson Kibue. He did not specify a group. He said it was likely that no more than 10 attackers were involved.

Somalia’s president — the leader of a country familiar with terrorist attacks — said his country knows “only too well the human costs of violence like this” as he extended prayers to those in Kenya.

“These heartless acts against defenceless civilians, including innocent children, are beyond the pale and cannot be tolerated. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Kenya in its time of grief for these lives lost and the many injured,” President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said.

The gunmen carried AK-47s and wore vests with hand grenades on them, said Manish Turohit, 18, who hid in a parking garage for two hours.

“They just came in and threw a grenade. We were running and they opened fire. They were shouting and firing,” he said after marching out of the mall in a line of 15 people who all held their hands in the air.

A local hospital was overwhelmed with the number of wounded being brought in hours after the attack, so they had to divert them to a second facility. Dozens of people were wounded. Officials said Kenyans turned out in droves to donate blood.

The United Nations secretary-general’s office said that Ban Ki-moon has spoken with President Uhuru Kenyatta and expressed his concern. British Prime Minister David Cameron also called Kenyatta and offered assistance.

Kenyan authorities said they have thwarted other large-scale attacks targeting public spaces. Kenyan police said in September 2012 they disrupted a major terrorist attack in its final stages of planning, arresting two people with explosive devices and a cache of weapons and ammunition.

Anti-terror Police Unit boss Boniface Mwaniki said vests found were similar to those used in attacks that killed 76 people in Uganda who gathered to watch the soccer World Cup finals on TV in July 2010. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for those bombings, saying the attack was in retaliation for Uganda’s participation in the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia.